It is a bitterly cold windy day here in Babylon, I mean Binghamton. We attempted to warm ourselves with a rambling podcast about transgenderism, the Methodists, how the West should stop trying to export heresy, disciplining children, and how easy it is to say anything true about Jesus now. I’m not sure, but I would put real money down on our offending at least our listener with this one. Enjoy! Here is the article about boys competing as girls, and... Read more
Casting my eye over the lections for this morning, I remembered that I gave a Lenten talk about Joseph a while ago, right after reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I cut out the first half of the talk where I complain about trying to throw away all my own stuff. Here is the part that matters—What happened to Joseph when his brother’s Kon Mari’d him. And more importantly, can you let Jesus tidy up your own soul?... Read more
Friday, we made it, wow. One It must be a truth universally acknowledged that children get sick more often, but that the parents of those children falling to the plague rises to Level Epic. I am sure I had the same cold as several of the children, but they carried on with life, with the single addition of unstoppable whining, whereas I could not move. Of course, I wasn’t whining. Maybe that was the difference. I should have tried explaining... Read more
The First Thought Facebook reinstated Faith McDonnell’s account. Which is Fantastic, and thank heaven, and all the loud complaining on every platform available. Glad to see a moment of sanity catching its breath in all the turgid waters of our new social order. Meanwhile, I need to go find one of those old disk things to put all my pictures on…or maybe I should print them out? Can’t remember how it goes. What do you do with real actual pictures?... Read more
Whatever it was I was thinking about yesterday evaporated when I happened on this news, discovered on facebook no less. The tireless, ever cheerful Faith McDonnell has been locked out of her facebook account. Faith, as you probably know, directs the Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Religious Liberty Program. She advocates for the human rights of Christians all over the world but particularly in South Sudan. If you are Anglican you will run into her in the oddest places. She... Read more
This is interesting, if vaguely depressing. For the world wanderer, collecting interesting places to stay, various churches in England and Scotland are available for what they’re calling ‘champing,’ that is, camping in a church. Taking a page from the glamping phenomenon—very expensive glamour camping that in no way resembles actual real camping, most especially because of how much you pay for it—camping in a church is a way to experience beautiful architecture and history first hand, beyond the desultory drive... Read more
Well, it is Monday, that’s for sure. And it looks like there’s a fresh layer of snow on the ground. And I’ve got a hacking cold and a lot of self-pity, so in order to try to pretend we’re ok and not dead we did up a podcast first about how sorry I am for being mean and sarcastic about Tim Tebow, and then second working through the Ben Shapiro interview of Bishop Barron, as well as the usual meandering... Read more
In my ongoing quest to come to the end of the internet, this week I discovered a word I should have seen coming—self-compassion. Self-compassion is a stop somewhere out there on the journey to self-love, which, from my vast research, seems to be a terminal destination. Self-compassion nor self-love should be confused with self-indulgence, which of course is bad, and is probably the conjoined twin of self-care. And also, I took the quiz, though I lied. I put ‘sometimes’ down... Read more
One Decided to stop neglecting the little girls and read to them all those books which their bigger sisters adored. Beginning with the Little House in the Big Woods and moving swiftly on to the Prairie. They are, my two youngest, of course, transfixed, as they should be—as well as anxious and moved. And I said to myself, again, as I often do, how complex and wondrous is the experience of being human. Two By which I mean that social... Read more
So I didn’t get to the goop (just to remind you, A Modern Lifestyle Brand) gift buying guide yesterday, which I know we must have all been a little disappointed about. So let us circle back and enjoy the crazy, shall we? But I am nothing if not helpful, so I am not going to leave you, gaping, with only the offerings of goop. I’m going to add my own real alternatives sprinkled here and there, like little islands of... Read more
Preventing Grace
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